AS220 play is a journey of self-discovery for Russian-Jewish immigrant

By Susan McDonaldSpecial to The Journal

Wednesday

Jan 8, 2020 at 4:00 PMJan 8, 2020 at 11:43 PM

“How Many Bushels Am I Worth?,” chronicling the experiences of Bena Shklyanoy and her family during the mass migration of Soviet Jews in the 1970s, will be on stage Jan. 9-12 in a production by Providence's FirstHand Theatrical.

PROVIDENCE — When Bena Shklyanoy was a child in Russia, her grandmother would tell stories about her family’s experiences. When Bena couldn’t escape, she listened halfheartedly.

Decades later, having joined a mass immigration of Soviet Jews in the 1970s and raising her own children in Chicago, Shklyanoy discovered that her children knew little about their history.

“The day my mother died, I realized my children knew absolutely nothing about their own family. Suddenly, I realized that if they didn’t know, the next generation wouldn’t,” she said in a phone interview.

Having never written memories down, Shklyanoy began to craft stories on a website. A publicist connected her to Kevin Olson, artistic director of FirstHand Theatrical in Providence. Together, they transformed her experiences into a play called “How Many Bushels Am I Worth?,” whose title refers to the 1970s trade deal tying the exchange of American goods such as wheat to the release of Soviet Jews. It will be performed Thursday through Sunday at AS220 in Providence.

Olson said he became interested in the mass immigration of some 300,000 Soviet Jews when working with resettled “new Americans” at the Jewish Community Center in St. Paul, Minnesota.

“I became intrigued by the idea of bringing together people who lived through this iconic 10 to 15 years in history,” he says.

The pair first co-wrote “And Then What,” in reference to a favorite expression of Shklyanoy's great-grandfather, and focused on her grandmother and her six siblings, from the 1870s to 1970s.

“How Many Bushels Am I Worth?” more recently became what Olson calls “a master narrative” of the 1970s immigration, with most stories ringing similar to Shklyanoy’s. At one curtain call in Chicago, an older woman stood up and said, “Thank you for telling my story!”

Shklyanoy, with her husband and two young children, immigrated to the United States in 1976. They found jobs and a low-rent apartment and settled into a life that was vastly different from the one they knew in Kiev. One of the most startling differences proved to be assimilation to Jewish culture. Their passports may have proclaimed them Jews, but because religion was outlawed in Russia at the time, they had no exposure to Jewish traditions.

“People here asked us if we celebrated Hanukkah. What’s that?” she asked.

She recalls another time she received an angry phone call from her young daughter’s teacher in the Orthodox Jewish school. The teacher had asked students to talk about their favorite food. Her daughter innocently answered pork chops, which angered the teacher, as pork is forbidden by Orthodox Jewish dietary standards.

“She kept screaming at me, ‘How could you? It’s not kosher!’ When I asked her to spell kosher so I could look it up and understand what she meant, I think she got it. I had no idea,” she says. “The culture clash or mixing was very enlightening and interesting.”

Immigrants from the staunchly communist Soviet Union also had no concept of private property or real estate, and Shklyanoy credits assimilation programs and the American government for helping with their transition.

“We were completely helpless," she said. "Without that help, it would have been mentally impossible.”

Shklyanoy says “How Many Bushels Am I Worth?” was intended only for her family until Olson convinced her that if her descendants didn’t understand their immediate history, others didn’t either.

“When my children and grandchildren first saw the play, they had tears in their eyes. My 16-year-old granddaughter said, ‘Babushka, we have not blinked,’” Shklyanoy said quietly, using the Russian word for grandmother. “This was a way for people to understand the meaning of my life, our philosophies, the decisions we had to make and why I am the way I am.

“Nothing starts or ends with us. I wanted them to understand that.”

That sentiment can be applied to any immigrant, Olson noted, making the play resonate today.

“The 1970s Soviet Jew immigration is a good model of how resettlement can work. Was it perfect? No. Was it effective? Absolutely,” he said.

For Shklyanoy, the underlying message is of tolerance.

“It’s very important to have solidarity and not criticize people,” she said. “It’s important to understand where people are coming from emotionally."

“How Many Bushels Am I Worth?” will be performed at AS220, 95 Empire St, Providence, through Jan. 12. For tickets, go to appledoesnotfall.com/plays/.

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